THE KANSAS CITY 1951 FLOOD
There was no feeling of pessimism among the clean-up crews. Everyone went at his task eagerly. And ringing from crew to crew was the humming and singing of "On Top of Old Smokey." What significance? It was a song, a popular song, that seemed to mean spirits were back to normal.
July 1951 Moonbeams article...
The Story of the Kansas City Flood
The Kansas City flood is now past. Its effects will be noticed for weeks to come. The physical damage and loss of Company property is very great. But customers' needs are being met by our nearby plants. We review this disaster in a spirit of thanksgiving; first, because there was no injury to any of our employees throughout the entire dangerous experience. Second, because of the inspiration we can all draw from the spirit shown by Procter & Gamble people in dealing with a situation as it developed.
TRY to picture acres of water, engulfing everything in sight, fields and homes and factories that were trying to shed heavy rains of a few short hours before. This was the Kansas City flood, one of the worse in our nation's history.
And think of one of our largest P&G factories manned by a skeleton crew of 100 men, settled in an area only a few hundred feet from the rampant river, believing until too late that they were protected by a 10-foot dike.
Not since 1903 had Kansas City and surrounding area felt the devastating effects of a flood and it was not nearly so destructive. 1903 was the year the P&G factory site was chosen in Kansas City and operations were not underway until 1904 so there were no buildings to be flooded at that time.
This 1951 flood was the Company's second major disaster from flood waters. In 1937, Ivorydale was flooded by water from Mill Creek. Factory grounds were 10 feet under water in spots.
This time, rains had poured down on Missouri and Kansas daily for 36 days and yet a serious flood was believed to have been averted. Suddenly, with little warning, the Kaw River (250 feet from our factory) surged out of its banks and inundated the four largest industrial sections of Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, and their neighboring residential districts.
The total havoc and destruction is almost impossible to describe. It has been estimated at nearly $850,000,000 for the area.
Unusual summer rains through Kansas and Missouri completely saturated the ground and additional rains ran off quickly, causing the flood. The river, usually 1/10th of a mile wide, bulged out to a record width of eight miles in some places.
Flood waters, carrying with them mud and twisted wreckage, grew in size and speed to an estimated 26 miles an hour at flood crest, as the river went six feet higher than expected.
About 25 miles of the streets and 35 miles of sewers were under water. Houses under water numbered close to 15,000 and 5,765 acres of industrial property was flooded.
Thursday, July 12, 1951
At our P&G factory, constant check was made with weather authorities. Our basement had been evacuated of movable machinery. On the first floor, file cabinets and other small pieces of furniture were stacked on the tops of desks.
It was during the annual shutdown at the factory and only 100 employees were available. The majority of these were mechanics and some shipping employees.
Thursday morning, our 100 people came to work. Anticipating some water in the parking lots, all but one parked their cars on 18th Street, on higher ground. At 2 p.m., there was a warning that the flood might be worse than had been predicted. The employees went to work placing sand bags along the dike which stands 250 feet from the factory next to the Kaw River. The sand bags were placed six feet wide, four feet high and for about 600 feet along the dike. The dike itself is about 10 feet high. The employees had to fill the bags as well as place them in the dike support.
It was obvious later that all Armourdale, where the factory is located, would have been flooded five hours earlier if it hadn't been for the sandbagging done by our people. The extra time was sufficient for 15,000 people to be evacuated.
Some of the people worked at the plant while their own homes were being inundated by the flood waters.
Sand boils soon developed as water seeped under the dike and boiled up the sand. Bag walls 10 feet high were placed around these boils to hold the water in.
By late afternoon, the Company cars had been driven up on the shipping platform for safety. (The water went five feet over the tops of these cars Saturday at the crest of the flood.)
There was plenty of food and water in the cafeteria so they weren't too worried. By night, the water was still rising and they had moved their headquarters to the cafeteria on the second floor.
At 10:30 p.m. the water splashed over the levee on the west bank at 20th Street and Kansas Avenue (our factory address) and spread south.
Friday, July 13, 1951
Seventy-five people were still in the plant shortly before 5:20 a.m. helping prepare the factory for the flood danger when R.Z. Smiley, superintendent, asked two national guardsmen, two of several stationed in jeeps near the Kaw River, to walk through our factory and ask curious outsiders who might have wandered in to leave. Our employees were too busy to tell them or to watch out for any plundering of materials. Leaving their jeep the 250 feet away, the guardsmen walked down to the factory and, with Mr. Smiley, walked inside. They had barely gotten inside the office when torrents of water came surging down Kansas Avenue fronting the factory and, with it, the jeep, swept along by the rushing tide. The guardsmen were marooned in our factory, along with the 75 employees from that time until that morning at 10 a.m. when they were rescued by boat.
At 5:20 a.m. Friday morning, July 13, the east bank dikes, constructed on the engineering idea that they would form adequate protection for a flood of the intensity of 1903, proved inadequate. At three places south of the Kansas Avenue bridge water poured over the top.
It broke a few hundred feet below the plant and in three hours the water had come up nine feet. In 24 hours, it came up six feet above the sand bags put out to protect the dike. From that time on, whether the dike held or not was of little importance because the massive waves of water poured high over the top of the dike.
One tank, 10 feet in diameter, 70 feet long, and weighing about 50 tons, floated away, struck a telephone pole and was held temporarily, then broke away again and is now lodged 3 blocks away from the plant, where it is anchored by a rope to a tree.
Lights were gone. There was no water except the amounts conserved by the group. The telephone lines were down.
By this time packing plants in the area, but located on lower ground near the junction of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, had water near the third floors of their buildings. All animals had been taken up into any available space on the higher floors.
A brave attempt to rescue the marooned men was made by several P&G employees in a boat but it failed.
At 10 Friday morning, the two national guardsmen were rescued from our factory and a little later, several of our employees were evacuated. Some stayed in the factory, however, through the flood as fire watchmen.
The water was so swift that a 25 h.p. motor boat couldn't even breast the tide. Finally, a flat-bottomed boat worked its way along the buildings through the strong current to the top of a boxcar near the second story of our shipping dock and managed to tie up on one of the metal bars protruding out of the water from the top of the boxcar. Our people crawled out onto the roof. Then boatload by boatload they were taken away from the factory.
Because of possible water contamination, special arrangements were made to supply treated water and food for our people in the plant once boats could get to it. An emergency first aid station was set up on the second floor where all people in the plant could get typhoid shots.
Throughout Friday the water continued to rage around and through our factory and other factories in the area. As the water swept through the plant, it brought with it several feet of silt and deposited it in huge quantities in every corner and space.
Saturday, July 14, 1951
After the crest was reached a few minutes after 3 a.m. on Saturday, the flood water began receding.
But the far-reaching damage, estimated earlier, could be seen for the first time as the water uncovered its victimized area.
Silt 15 inches deep covers all of our factory and, in some places, the pile-up of silt reaches a height of 3 1/2 feet. Thanks are either dangerously titled off their moorings or have floated away. Three kettles were forced five feet into the air, breaking through floor after floor. We lost many tanks and other pieces of equipment, yet accumulated many unfamiliar ones. Machinery, foreign to a soap company, stands idle in sections of our plant grounds.
When the tide decreased, the fire hazard caused by gasoline on the water from nearby refineries eliminated the use of motor boat transportation. And the silt made the rowing very difficult.
Saturday, at their homes, Anna Bartolac, Florence Newman, Loree Beem, and Bill Beem worked, calling personnel to see if they were all right Immediate help was offered to them if needed.
Sunday, July 15, 1951
Sunday morning, a P&G emergency headquarters was set up at 1242 Minnesota Avenue, only 18 blocks from our factory but safe from the water. Open day and night, it was the point from which volunteers called all P&G people to see if they were getting food and water, if they were homeless, and if they needed anything.
Families on high ground away from the flood offered clothing and room to other P&G families. Storage space was made available. Moving pick-up trucks were offered for use at no charge.
Some families whose homes, although close to the factory, were untouched by water moved in with relatives in Kansas City, Missouri, so that cleanup crews and homeless families could have places to stay.
But over and above the damage was the challenging, admirable spirit of our people, eager to get to work and clean it up. Barely had some employees found their families were all right when they reported to the emergency headquarters and asked to do their part on the emergency crews.
Monday, July 16, 1951
Two shifts were in operation at the factory just as early as possible. From Monday on, crews worked from 4;30 a.m. till 7:30 p.m. Working earlier or later was impossible without lights.
Factory first aiders helped the American Red Cross in its commendable emergency work. A second first aid station on higher ground was set up where the factory nurse gave typhoid shots to all people going into the factory.
By Wednesday afternoon, some clean-up headway could be made through the debris. Men were busy cleaning out the boiler room and the standard tower with the hope to have it in operating condition within a week.
A steady chain of men with wheelbarrows worked back and forth out of the standard tower. Other men squeegeed the floor as the red tile became visible under the brown mucky silt.
The street in front of the factory was still covered with water and littered with dead animals and scattered pieces of broken furniture. Away from the standard tower and from the office, the silt worked up to higher depts.
Yet, there was no feeling of pessimism among the clean-up crews. Everyone went at his task eagerly. And ringing from crew to crew was the humming and singing of "On Top of Old Smokey." What significance? It was a song, a popular song, that seemed to mean spirits were back to normal.
Most of the silt in the main office had been shoveled outside. Pieces of furniture had been thrown out the broken windows and lay piled in the street.